Hello, all! Well, we've arrived safe and sound in Seattle, but I won't get into the details of our trip right now because I have too much to tell you guys about, so you'll just have to stay tuned for our adventures in the Pacific Northwest!
Our little guys are growing up so fast! Ben has made monumentous strides in the last few weeks. He's still not walking, but it's certainly not because he can't, he just doesn't want to. He'll walk next to us holding just one of our hands, he'll stand unassisted, he'll cruise around furniture, but the second we let go of a hand and try to get him to walk, he falls all to pieces! Oh well, I guess we just need to wait until the timing is right for him.
Ben has gotten super-independent when it comes to eating, though! He currently won't let us feed him anything, he has to do it himself either with a spoon or his hands. He's crazy! Fortunately, he is getting better with the spoon, so hopefully soon he won't end up with applesauce in his hair after every meal. Oh, and as you probably gathered from the photo, he loves to feed Nesbitt, so we never know how much he has eaten versus how much he has given to the dog. Ben's other food obsession is meat - give him a chicken nugget or pieces of ham or part of a meatball and he'll be happy for hours! At least the kid is getting his protein.
Ben has gained many new skills besides sucking on the wrong end of a spoon. He's a huge peek-a-boo fan, so he's always pulling things over his head to initiate a game - blankets, bibs (thus getting food all over his head), you name it! The other day, he started playing peek-a-boo by sitting behind a door and opening and closing it. What a card. Ben has also started giving five and blowing kisses and pointing and grunting at things that he wants. He's just growing up so fast!
We've had lots of fun linguistic experiences with Sam lately as he becomes more and more verbal. Here are a few of my favorites:
Of course, not all is hearts and rainbows in the Morningstar house. Sam has come up with a new extremely annoying habit. I know that most kids go through a "why?" stage where incessantly ask why. Well, Sam is currently in a "what?" stage. Whenever he doesn't hear us (or doesn't want to hear us), he responds with "what?" It's gotten so bad that two "what?"s in a row warrant a time out. Unsurprisingly, his hearing is quickly improving.
As you can see, Sam got his first taste of the cowboy life two weekends ago when we went to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving point. It was so great! Sam loved riding the horsie, and afterward he proclaimed that he was a "very good rider". Interestingly, though, he wouldn't actually touch the horses or other animals in the petting zoo. He liked looking at them and talking to them, but had no interest in petting them (except for the horse he rode - that one got a pet and a thank you). I guess that good sense was just prevailing, petting a strange horse could be a very bad idea!
The only other news that I can think of is that we had an absolutely fabulous Mother's Day. We celebrated a week early because we were flying out on the actual date and I was treated to a very special present, indeed - an iPaq! My PDA is fabulous - color screen, Windows CE, and on-board WiFi and Bluetooth! It's super-cool, and it has been very handy on our trip.
I guess that's about it for now. We'll write back soon with news from the Pacific Northwest!
Love,
Steve, Jamie, Sam, and Ben